July 2012

  • On Canaletto and Guardi and Venetian Light

    On Canaletto and Guardi and Venetian Light

    In the art of the Venetian artist Canaletto (Antonio del Canale, 1697–1768), Venice returned to one of her oldest habits: the depiction and celebration of her own beauty. Unlike the works produced in Venice’s heyday, however, Canaletto’s art and that of his contemporary Francesco Guardi (1712–93), both of whom were…

  • Sicilian Holiday Reading

    Sicilian Holiday Reading

    Looking for some reading material to take to Sicily? If you haven’t encountered Inspector Montalbano yet, perhaps now is the time. He is the creation of Andrea Camilleri, currently Italy’s best-selling author (two million copies in 2010) and also the most translated of any Italian writer. His works have appeared…

  • 381 years ago this June

    On June 17th 1631, in the central Indian town of Burhanpur, a royal wife died in childbirth at the age of 38, after delivering her fourteenth child. She was Arjumand Bano, better known as Mumtaz Mahal, one of the many wives of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. Six hundred and…

  • Attila the Hun and the Foundation of Venice

    Attila the Hun and the Foundation of Venice

    The Hungarian pavilion in the grounds of the Biennale by the Giardini Pubblici was built in 1909. Its exterior is decorated with mosaics by one of Hungary’s foremost exponents of the Secession, Aladár Kőrösfői Kriesch. They depict Attila the Hun. The one shown here has gold lettering underneath it, reading…

  • Death in Venice cocktail a hit

    Death in Venice cocktail a hit

    The Death in Venice cocktail crafted by the Hotel Excelsior’s Tony Micelotta and Robin Saikia, author of the Venice Lido: A Blue Guide Travel Monograph, proves to be a hit, the hotel’s best-selling cocktail in 2012.  See the recipe here » An extract from Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, whose hero dies of eating an over-ripe strawberry…

  • The Gentry: Stories of the English

    The Gentry: Stories of the English

    If you had to choose an English family you could call “gentry”, you might well go back to the early seventeenth century and seek out the Oglanders of Nunwell on the Isle of Wight, whose meticulous account-books for the years 1620 to 1648 still exist and remain within the family.…

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